


Sand, Stone and Silver

by Maybethings



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Afterlife, M/M, Qunmance, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-23
Updated: 2011-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashaad gives Saemus Dumar a part of himself. Saemus keeps it, until the very end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand, Stone and Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Sand, Stone and Silver](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3985900) by [rossignol_hatshepsut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rossignol_hatshepsut/pseuds/rossignol_hatshepsut)



There’s a place on the Wounded Coast that any map might miss: a tiny, unnamed stretch of beach where nothing grows but tufts of hardy beachgrass. That’s where Saemus goes walking with Ashaad, their footprints making neat lines in the sand that the wind will later erase. It is spartan, but safe. A little like what he sees in his companion.

Ashaad has not neglected to map this place, either.

He has never met another like the Qunari: strong, assured and absolutely guileless. He is not the friend of Viscount Dumar’s son; he’s the friend of Saemus, and accepting of his strengths and weaknesses. They talk of the sea and people and questions of religion—what Ashaad will tell him, anyway. He says it’s not his place to discuss the Qun in detail.

“Is there a place in the Qun for someone like me?” he asks as they sit on a flat stone above the tideline. The smell of salt and sea breeze thankfully overwhelms that of the filth around them.

“And what is ‘someone like you’?” The man’s voice is a neutral growl, an answer that’s not truly an answer.

“I—don’t know. I have so many doubts and questions about everything. I could never be as sure as you are.”

“That is true.” Saemus winces, although he knows there is no malice in the words. “You are not meant to be me, as I am not meant to be you. You question your world—but the Qun would show you your place and have you accept it.”

“And where would I be?”

“Where you belong.”

“Where I belong.” The words seem full of hope and promise. He looks up at the windblown sky, at the patterns of the clouds. They promise a storm in the night, but a clear morning after. “I would like that, I think.”

Ashaad seems to be pondering something as he runs his fingers through his hair. He turns. “Give me your hand. The left one.” Dumbfounded, Saemus obliges—and furrows his brow as the Qunari pulls one of his long, white-grey hairs out by the roots and winds it around one of his fingers.

“Er, Ashaad…?”

“That a part of me shall always go with you on your path,” he says bluntly, and Saemus dips his head, hiding a goofy smile as he bumps shoulders with his companion.

That’s the moment when he decides to run away again.

* * *

He has a handful of peaceful days, walking among the Qunari in their compound. Though he is not far from home, it feels like a whole new world—like he has opened the door to a stranger’s abode, and found it to be his. The floating antaam speak little to him. That suits him fine. They will know each other at their own pace. They speak enough to their own, however, and the words are little shards of thunder: deep, vehement and oddly pleasing to the ear. Saemus’ heart drinks deep of this strange belonging, and he is content.

One evening, he takes his customary walk with Ashaad on their little stretch of sand. His light heart blinds him to footprints the wind has not washed away, and the strange shadows concealed by rocks. Ashaad sees, and yanks him back by one arm. An arrow whistles from the clear blue sky, slamming into the sand at their feet.

The Winters descend like wolves and wind, cold, unfeeling and ruthless. Two grab Saemus, twist his arms behind his back. He cries out, and Ashaad reaches for him just as Ginnis leaps upon his back, slashing his throat like a sacrificial ox. He goes down without a sound, but until the last his gaze never wavers from Saemus.

And until the last, Saemus does not look away, his tears stilled with shock just as he is.

* * *

He makes it home, escorted by Hawke, and promptly gets into another argument with Father. The man is scared and weak and _blind_ , and—had he expected him to listen? Foolish of him. He’s not sure when his father really stopped, but it was years ago. When their guest has gone, Saemus is sent to his room in shame like a boy of eight. He complies, though he can feel old resentments creeping around his heart again, like debris washed back onto the shore.

For all its plush comforts and heavy fabrics, his room is more foreign to him now than his pallet and coarse covers in the Qunari compound. Sleep will be difficult, though he knows both his mind and body crave rest. _Not yet,_ Saemus tells himself, _not yet_ , and he shuffles to the basin to wash his face. There he finds Ashaad’s hair still bound around his finger and stained red from the fight. Grief sinks its long fangs home and his tears flow freely then. His hunger for closeness only doomed Ashaad; Ashaad, who did no man wrong, slain by cold steel. Slain because of him.

He can never let it happen again.

In the morning Saemus asks one of the servants to dry his pillow in the sun. The Viscount catches him doing it. “What’s wrong?” he asks with false concern.

“I had some very bad dreams last night,” he murmurs. While Father’s lips compress into a thin, dark line, he says nothing.

* * *

The ring, a thin silver thread more precious than gold, never comes off.

Somewhere between the fighting and the pretending and the fakery as he returns to being _Viscount Dumar’s boy_  over _Saemus_ , he reads like a man possessed, sneaking Genitivi’s musings on the Qun into a shelf his father never touches. He throws himself into swordplay, although he never makes much headway in that department. He spends the years lying quiet, waiting, learning, his heart aching more and more for the House of Tides every day.

He still walks on their stretch of the beach, but less and less every month.

He wears the ring when he flees his house for the last time, one morning when the streets are quiet and the dawn is dark. He wears it when he appears before the antaam that guard the compound’s perimeter. He wears it when a letter comes, saying Viscount Dumar wants a word in the Chantry. He wears it when Mother Petrice gives him a cup of hot tea after his travels, under the cold, high arches of her domain.

He wears it when the tea burns down his throat with a heat that does not come from fire, searing it closed. The last thing he sees as he slumps to the cold flagstones is Petrice’s cruel, twisted smile; the last thing he feels is the horror that they are about to use him against the Qunari. His people. He doesn’t see Hawke come for him; he doesn’t see one of the Stens come for him, either.

His last thought is a wordless prayer, repeated over and over and over, that they will survive. They must.

* * *

Saemus’ eyes snap open suddenly, and the world is flooded with light. He expected darkness, not sea, wind and clouds.

And beachgrass.

He rises from where he lies, damp sand slipping down the back of his shirt. He shucks it off as he looks around, surrounded by familiar rocks and dunes, with everything underlaid by the steady wish-wash of the tide. The sky is clear and the wind carries the damp smell of a day recently washed clean by rain—and something headier, muskier, more familiar. He’s not alone.

Ashaad pads up behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder. His feet are bare, his throat unmarked, his warpaint vibrant as if it has just been applied. In death all wounds are closed, so why does Saemus’ heart feel like it will claw its way out through his ribs? “Shanedan,” he says. “You have something of mine.”

“I—? Uh, yes.” Saemus looks to his left hand, where the hair gleams brighter than it ever did in life. He slips it from his finger, with some difficulty, and drops it into Ashaad’s outstretched palm. The man nods and closes his fingers over it. It is gone in the next instant, but it feels right nonetheless.

“You…were waiting here?” he asks, still bewildered by what lies around him.

“I was not whole. I could not leave this place.”

“Oh.” It is the smallest, most desolate sound that has ever come from his throat. “And…now you can leave?”

“I choose not to.” He stares across the ocean, then back at Saemus. “It was not the ring I wanted returned, _viddathari_.”

“Oh.” And then, as realisation dawns, “Oh!”

They sit, together, on the flat stone above the tideline as the sun sets. Kirkwall is a distant memory, beyond the clean smells of the ocean and wind. Saemus leans on Ashaad’s shoulder, and presently feels him wrap one large grey arm around him. He is strong. Solid. Real. Impulsively he lifts his lover’s hand to his lips, kissing the broad, prominent knuckles, and is rewarded with rough, battleworn fingers brushing the underside of his chin.

“Ah, Ashaad? Where are we, exactly?” he asks as the stars blink into view—Maker’s Cross and the Wyvern to him, Valokas and the Ataashi to Ashaad.

The answer is thoughtful, but sure. “We are where we belong.”


End file.
